Rep. Gosar Calls on White House to Withdraw from Unconstitutional Paris Climate Agreement

WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) joined several of his House colleagues in calling on the White House to completely withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement:

“President Trump ran his campaign on the idea of putting America’s interests first. He can fulfill that pledge in a big way by using his authority to completely withdraw the United States from the misguided Paris Climate Agreement. This unconstitutional treaty is nothing more than an extension of the Obama Administration’s ideological war on affordable energy. This liberal pipedream abdicates our sovereignty in favor of a global redistribution of wealth. Furthermore, this scheme was designed to favor our economic rivals like China and India by giving them until 2030 to reduce emissions while the United States front-loaded our costs at the expense of American jobs.

“President Obama had to pull off Olympic-level legal gymnastics to mislead Americans into thinking the Paris Agreement wasn’t a treaty because he knew this charade would never pass the U.S. Senate. Spending nearly a trillion dollars per year to reduce the global average temperature in 2100 by a third of one degree defies common sense and is a terrible business decision. Thankfully, we have a new deal-maker in the White House who puts America first. It’s time to put this bad deal to bed once and for all.”

Background:

Congressman Gosar signed onto two separate letters calling on President Trump to completely withdraw from the Paris Agreement. Those draft letters can be found HERE and HERE.

(Courtesy of the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service)
The Paris Agreement to address climate change internationally entered into force on November 4, 2016 and has been accepted by 112 parties, including the United States and the European Union.

The Paris Agreement is a subsidiary to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a broader, framework treaty entered into during the George. H. W. Bush Administration. Unlike the UNFCCC, which received the Senate’s advice and consent in 1992, President Obama never submitted the Paris Agreement to the Senate for approval. Instead, the Obama Administration appears to have treated the Paris Agreement as an executive agreement, which the President may unilaterally execute, rather than a treaty, which requires the advice and consent of the Senate. (The key distinctions are analyzed in this report and infographic.) No legislation implementing the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement into domestic law has been enacted, nor has the executive branch asserted that the provisions in either are self-executing, a term used to describe international obligations that have the force of domestic law without subsequent congressional action. Rather, the commitments made by the United States under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement have been carried out domestically through pre-existing legislation, including the Intermodal Surface Transportation Energy Efficiency Act of 1991 and the Clean Air Act.

Under domestic law, the requirements for withdrawal depend on the type of agreement. For executive agreements, the President has generally terminated such agreements without authorization from the legislative branch, and this practice has not been challenged by Congress or the Senate.

(Courtesy of the Washington Times)
A peer-reviewed study [found] that implementing all provisions of all signers to the Paris Agreement would prevent only 0.306 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming by 2100.

What would it cost? Unofficial estimates by the United States, European Union, Mexico and China amount to $739-$757 billion per year.

Those parties account for about 80 percent of signatories’ emissions reduction pledges. Other pledges would have similar costs per unit, implying something in the range of $185-$189 billion.

All told, $924-$946 billion. Per year. Every year from 2030 to the end of the century. “And that’s if the politicians do everything right. If not, the real cost could double.”

So, for $65-$132 trillion, we might — if the alarmists are right — reduce global average temperature by a third of one degree by 2100. That’s $212-$431 billion per thousandth of a degree of cooling

Contact: Steven D. Smith

Steven.Smith (at) mail.house (dot) gov